Paperwork, Parties, & Psychics
by SonicZephyr
Summary: Sasha and Milla prior to landing gigs as camp counselors. Now featuring: disco gone sad, a red carpet event, alcohol-fueled nightmares, and an actual mission.
1. Chapter 1

Friday. 5 pm. Psychonauts HQ.

It should be noted that while international espionage sounds exciting, for every day of action there is at least one week of paperwork to be filled out upon the mission's completion. An accomplished Psychonaut might have a whole division beneath him just dedicated to filing reports, but Sasha Nein is not so lucky. Despite being on the force for well over a year, the powers that be have never entrusted him to anything more dangerous than escort missions and fetch quests - tedious endeavors that are light on excitement and heavy on bureaucracy. For the first time in weeks, though, Sasha has managed to tame his inbox. His desk is clear. His mind is clear.

His door bursts open.

A well-dressed man walks in, drops a stack of papers on the desk, walks out. He does not close the door. Sasha sucks in a sharp breath and adjusts his glasses, shifting up to check the cover page.

 _Agent Nine._

His fingers twitch and he's out of his seat, sending the stack sliding sideways, fanning off the desk and into the bin. A few years ago he might have followed the man out, made a scene, but not now. He is calm. He is collected. He is - " _Sasha, darling~!"_

His partner floats in and Sasha lets out a breath he did not realize he was holding. Milla Vodello is a technicolor nightmare, but a highly competent agent. He tries in vain not to stare at her outfit (a green and yellow… thing; he can barely stand to call it a dress) as she flits about the room, moving file boxes until she's cleared a place to sit on a sofa that Sasha was unaware he owned.

He slides back into his seat and lights a cigarette. Telekinetic tendrils unfurl from his mind as he takes a drag - one flicking out to shut the door, another gathering the papers from the bin as he half-listens to Milla prattle on about something he has no interest in. Her voice is the ideal level of background noise. He lets out a stream of smoke, letting his stress dissipate with it. A shadow crosses his desk and he looks up.

"Hm?"

"Is this the report on the Watkins incident?" Milla asks, taking the top page off the stack. She scans the report, before picking up a pen and fixing his name in her large, loopy script. "What a drag. You ought to leave it til Monday, darling, and come dancing with me!"

"Again?"

"You _know_ you had fun!" She grins at him, placing the sheet back on the pile. "Just bring a book or something. Drinks are on me!"

He's about to decline when the door slams open again. Same suit, new stack of paper. "Nein, got more on Watkins. Gonna need you to-"

"Ah. No," Sasha says, grabbing his coat off the back of his chair and rising. "Agent Vodello and I were just on our way out. My deepest apologies."

Friday. 12 pm. The Discotheque.

A typical night clubbing with Sasha involves very little dancing on his part. It's just not his thing. Usually he reads by the light of a psychic glow. Sometimes he'll watch the band. Occasionally he'll watch Milla dance, give her a smile when she catches his eye. It's not unusual for Milla to come back to the table when the club hits a downswing. When the rhythm slows to a crawl and the couples cling and sway together, Milla will make her way back to their booth, slide into the booth beside him. They'll sit, knees touching, shoulder to shoulder, faces inches apart so they can hear each other over the booming speakers.

Often times, Sasha will talk about his book, or his experiments, or the latest developments in Psychonaut research, whatever takes his fancy. Milla will sit and nod and sip her drink, enjoying his presence. When the beat picks up, it's always the same conversation:

"Ah! Sasha, I love this song!" she'll say, beaming. "Isn't it just sublime? Come dance with me, baby!"

And he'll shake his head, but he'll smile. "I'm not nearly drunk enough for this. You go have fun, Milla. I'll be here."

"If you change your mind..." she'll offer as she climbs back up to her feet. But he never does. He sits, she dances, but the act somehow feels right. Lather, rinse, repeat, until the bouncers kick them out in the early hours of the morning. They'll stumble back to their respective homes and see each other Monday.

Tonight is different. Maybe this bartender makes drinks a little stronger than her usual club. Maybe Sasha's book is extra boring. Maybe the week was harder than usual. Maybe the beat is just _that_ good, because Milla finds the pull of the dance floor inescapable. She loses herself in the crowd, drinking up the excitement and good vibes, singing along to tunes she barely knows. At some point in the night, she catches herself singing about fiery passion, heat and fire _(Milla it's so hot)_ and steam and she misses a beat. It's suddenly a bit too loud and a bit too hot and the lights look _(like flames)_ a bit too bright so she shuts her eyes and sees the faces of her babies burning. She snaps them back open but the flames are still there and she can hear them calling her name, hissing it, _screaming it_ over and over again.

Sasha feels the unease nipping at the far edges of his mind and looks around for the source of the new energy. Milla's on the dance floor, standing still, breathing hard, pale as a ghost. He's up and at her side without a second thought.

"Milla?" He touches her arm, feels the heat radiating off her. "Milla, what's happened?"

She glances at his hand, then up at his face with wide, glossy eyes. "Sasha? Sasha… please… can't you hear them? They're frightened; they're screaming. Please, stop crying… please."

He leads them off dance floor, away from the curious eyes of other dancers and back to the relative safety of their booth. As he slides in beside her, Milla drops her head into her hands, covering her eyes, fingers curling into her bangs and gripping the hair tight. Sasha rests a hand on her back. She's burning up as she sobs and he has no idea what to do. This is not an event he planned for.

Friday. 2 am. The Discotheque.

Sasha rubs small circles into Milla's back and thinks. The best course of action would be to acquire a Psycho-Portal, enter her mind, and push the nightmares back into whatever vault they crawled out of. Then everything would be normal, Milla would be happy, and they could act as though this never happened.

Of course, he does not have a Psycho-Portal.

He's got nothing but a crying partner and a stack of empty glasses on the table.

So he just sits, rubbing her back and thinking.

Eventually Milla shifts, pulling her legs beside her on the seat and resting her head against Sasha's shoulder. "I'm sorry. It… it just hit me so suddenly, you know?"

He doesn't, really, but he nods nonetheless.

After a long stretch of silence, he finally asks "Do you want to discuss what just happened?"

"Not particularly, darling."

"Do you want to go home?"

"No. Not yet."

"Do you want to dance?"

She pulls back just enough to look him in the eye. Her makeup has survived the upset surprisingly well, though the wings of her eyeliner have been smudged into tired shadows. "Is this some kind of joke?"

"Not at all," he says, shaking his head. "I simply thought it might cheer you up."

She drops her head back against him. "Next time, okay? You'll owe me."

They leave the club soon after, both feeling weathered and old and ready for sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Clear platform heels, while a welcome addition to any fashionable closet, have no business existing off the dancefloor. So when Milla finds herself clomping home in them after the most tedious day of her life, she's of half a mind to PSI-blast them into dust and take a shot at going barefoot. She'd levitate, but it's taking all of her willpower just to stay awake.

She should have been at her desk today, sorting through the reports she's been putting off for ages. But life has a way of wriggling any plans well out of reach. She spent one half the day tailing a false lead through grimy back alleys, the other half standing before various higher-ups at HQ to explain how such a mix up could occur.

Life's been getting in the way of a lot of things, actually. Like her and Sasha having a couple of minutes to talk about what happened back at the club. It's not like she hasn't seen him since then. She passes him in the hall, sits opposite him while they eat, but she doesn't plan on pouring out her soul in front of her coworkers. Solo missions have been pulling them in opposite directions these past two weeks and they've both been busy outside of HQ - him with the new Brain Tumbler breakthrough, her dipping her toes into the waters of being a silver screen starlet.

Right now, though, all she can think about is her aching feet and the blisters she'll have in the morning. She makes it home and opens the door, ready to peel off these shoes and fall into a chair, any chair, when she sees the envelope on the floor. It's red with gilded edges, and as soon as she picks it up she knows what it is - an invitation to the premiere of Mission Moon. She lets out a squeal and tears it open, her clear platform heels forgotten.

* * *

It's a well known fact within the agency that, at any given moment, there is only a 10% chance that Milla Vodello is in her office. It's a complete injustice, that shoebox of a room. It's one of the smallest in the levitators' hall, windowless, hot in the summer, freezing in the winter. Instead, she can often be found in communal spaces, or, more recently, the clairvoyance wing. The clairvoyants get windows (though they are double-reinforced and opaque) and her partner, Sasha Nein.

She plans on catching him first thing, before he can get his second cup of coffee in. He's far more susceptible to suggestion uncaffeinated. She arrives early, bypasses any opportunities for chatter by floating to the fourth floor, heads for his wing. Despite her best intentions, she's sideswiped into helping Agent Phlox care for his plants (more on him later.)

By the time she's finished, it's nearly lunch and Sasha is sure to be as awake as he'll ever be. Smoke curls out from under his office door. She sighs, knocks, enters without waiting for an answer. He's sat at his desk, head in his hand, scribbling away at a report. He's got one cigarette burning in his overfilled ashtray, another floating by his head. Milla coughs and fans the air.

"Sasha!" she scolds, advancing towards his desk.

"Agent Vodello," he replies, still scribbling.

Milla plucks the cigarette out of the air, snubbing it out in an open corner of the ashtray. "One is bad enough. Your poor lungs must be screaming!"

"If that were the case," he says dryly, picking up the one still burning in the tray, flicking the ash, taking a long drag, "I would be screaming."

She huffs impatiently, shakes her head. Shakes off the feeling maternal disapproval/fond exasperation. She replaces the feeling with anticipation as she pulls the invitation from her pocket and slides it across his desk.

He glances at it, then back at her.

"Go on, read it," she insists.

He unfolds the letter, scans it, looks back at her.

"Isn't it exciting?" she asks, expectant.

"You've been to one of these before, haven't you?"

"Not with you, darling."

"It's only addressed to you."

She rounds the desk and points to the bottom of the page. "It says Milla Vodello, plus one. Plus one is you."

"No." His cigarette has burnt down to a stub. He adds it to the pile in the tray.

"It'll be fun, darling! Think of it now - the cinema, the dancing, mingling with the stars…"

"No."

"It's sci-fi. You can complain about the inaccuracies and drink free alcohol."

"..."

"You owe me a dance and it's not at a club."

She's close. She can feel his will breaking and her lips twitch into a smile. "Please, darling? For me?"

"Fine."

Her first instinct is to throw her arms around his neck, to plant a big kiss on his cheek and squeal. That would not be appropriate for the office, now would it? So instead she takes a step back and nods, beaming at him. "You won't regret this."

* * *

He immediately regrets everything.

Sasha is sat on a plush pink couch, surrounded by approximately 20 multicolored pillows. Some are no bigger than his hand. Some have sequins. What is their purpose? Who needs this many? He huffs, looks up to the fairy lights and mobiles strung up along the ceiling. Upon his arrival, Milla had called out over the sound of her shower that she'd be out in a minute. It's been more than a minute. He ends up staring at a lava lamp for what seems like a lifetime.

The creak of the bathroom door cuts through the silence and Sasha turns automatically. Milla's leaning in the doorway, one arm stretched high above her head, her hip jutting out. Her gown is a strapless, backless red-and-gold number; her lips are painted to match. The fabric clings to her torso and thighs before flaring at the knee, and Sasha feels his face heating. The moment she catches his eye, she grins broadly. "What do you think, babydoll? Am I fabulous enough?"

"Yes," he says in what he hopes is a neutral tone. "You look lovely."

She beams and heads to the door, stopping to check her elaborately curled up-do in the hall mirror. She grabs a clutch and then grabs his hand and pulls him out the door.

* * *

This might not be so bad , Sasha thinks to himself. After all, he has Milla by his side, and the promise of free booze and fake aliens is looming in the air. He just has to make it through the mingling.

Oh god, the mingling.

He is perfectly capable of holding conversations. He's fine speaking to crowds, joking with coworkers at HQ, consoling victims on more difficult cases. But when he climbs into the stretch limousine the studio sent for Milla, he is faced with five plastic faces. Five grinning plastic faces that break into excited screeching upon seeing the Mental Minx.

"Milla! It's so great to see you!"

"How have you been darling!?"

"Your date looks so mysterious!"

"Milla, I adore your dress!"

"Isn't this going to be so funnnn?!"

Sasha slides into a corner as Milla joins the noise, greeting each person with a kiss. It's an awkward endeavor - she has to drape herself over multiple laps to reach the last person in the row. At no point does she stop talking. Sasha marvels as she seemingly holds three conversations at once, all while pouring herself a glass of champagne from the mini bar. She's in her element. He's handed a glass and he downs it, letting the sickly-sweet fizz calm his mind.

He sits and half-listens to their conversations, itching for a cigarette.

By the time they finally arrive, Sasha is the first one out of the vehicle. He smooths the front of his suit, adjusts his glasses, then holds out a hand for Milla as she slides out of the car. She smiles at him, hooks her arm around his, and then leads him down the carpet at a calculated pace. The faces in the crowd blend together into one squirming, shouting mass.

While Milla poses, Sasha just stands and squints behind his shades as the flashbulbs explode.

He could really use that cigarette.

* * *

"People might see you!" Milla whispers, giving him a nudge with her elbow.

Sasha sighs, lets the popcorn he was TKing drop unceremoniously back into the box. She turns her attention back to the screen as he strips off his gloves. This is completely unhygienic , he thinks, more than loud enough for her to pick up on as he plucks a handful from the box.

She rolls her eyes, the gesture clear even in the dark. He rubs his fingers together in a vain attempt to get the salt off. A laser battle lights up the screen. The effects are… subpar at best. He reaches for more popcorn. Where exactly did the budget go for this film? It's clearly set in a quarry. Milla's bare hand brushes his own over the box and Sasha is slammed with emotion. It's golden warm, electric, and gone the moment she pulls her hand back.

She stares at him. He utters a quick apology, focuses on the screen. She rubs her hand over the gooseflesh that has broken out over her arm and does the same. They don't speak again until her death on screen.

Milla is sprawled on the ground, greed blood and foam slowly spreading on the space station floor. The intrepid captain falls to his knees, cradles her head in his arms and lets out a wracked sob. The traitor laughs from the shadows, smoke still trailing from his laser pistol. "Do you see, Kralbo, what happens when you disobey the will of the Collective?" A wave of soldiers swarm into the room- and a few members of the audience (including Sasha) burst into laughter.

Milla spots the reason immediately. Off in the corner of the screen, one of the soldiers missed the opening for the door, slamming into the frame instead. He stumbles into his spot, tries to stand at attention with his fellow soldiers, but is clearly not in the best shape. She shoots a glance at Sasha, who muffles his laugh with a cough. It's all downhill from there. The editor must have jumped ship. Every scene has a boom mic drifting into frame, visible wires, tragic acting. By the time the credits are rolling, Milla's slumped in her seat, face buried in her hands.

She risks a glance at Sasha through parted fingers. He has the audacity to grin at her.

"Shut up," she groans, snapping her fingers shut to block the sight. He pulls his gloves back on and watches the credits while she cringes. When the wave of embarrassment finally subsides, she climbs to her feet, sucks in a breath, and turns to Sasha.

"I should have stolen that dress," she says, looking down at him. "It was too good for that horrorshow."

"It was easily the best part of the movie," he agrees, rising. "Well, after Soldier Number Twelve's concussion."

She breaks into a smile.

* * *

They stumble into her apartment at one in the morning, completely smashed. The very first thing Milla does is kick her shoes into a corner and then make a beeline for the bathroom. Sasha flops onto her sofa, pushing her mass of pillows onto the floor. Everything is spinning and his arms are just dead weight.

"Has anyone ever told you that your sense of decor is disgusting?" he slurs, lifting his head half an inch before giving up and melting into the cushions.

"Rude!"

"It's true," he says, closing his eyes. "It's as if you ate candy… and then spit the candy out… and then shaped it all into a chair."

"First of all, that is disgusting." Milla leans over the back of the sofa and taps his forehead. He peeks an eye open to find she's in pajamas with her hair half down. A few strands threaten to touch his nose and he shrinks back. "Second, who are you to judge, Mister Sunglasses-at-Night? You're probably color blind."

"If only I were so lucky," he teases, before she snatches his glasses off his face. The room is instantly too bright and he tosses an arm over his eyes. "Ack! Milla!"

"Rude boys don't get to see," she says, tapping his nose. He swings an arm towards her but she floats up and out of his reach. He pushes himself off the couch and follows after her, squinting and grabbing at thin air. She giggles above him and he lets out a long huff.

It turns into a game of drunken cat and mouse. Every time he thinks he's close to catching her, she ducks away. He's left to fumble around her living room, arms outstretched like a cheap knock-off of Frankenstein's monster. It takes him a full five minutes before he realizes to go towards the light. A floor light, to be precise. He walks into it, grabbing it by the base before it has the chance to topple over. He pats along the middle of the pole, finding the knob and plunging the room into darkness.

His eyes adjust and he scans the room, finding Milla curled up in a high corner, his glasses perched on the tip of her nose. He stalks towards her and she breaks into a grin, descending just low enough that he can catch her around the waist. She hums and takes his glasses off, sliding them carefully onto his face.

"That was completely uncalled for," he says. She snakes her arms around his neck and nuzzles against his ear. A hairpin pokes at his cheek. He can only tolerate it for so long before he pulls away and adjusts his glasses.

"Well," Milla says after a moment. She floats off towards her room and Sasha feels compelled to follow. He stands awkwardly in the doorway, watching as she lets down her hair, dropping each pin into a small dish on her dresser. She glances at him over her shoulder. "You can come in."

He nods and shuffles in, taking a seat at the foot of her bed. Her blankets are soft, striped in a number of colors that he's too tired to count. He runs his fingers over the fabric absently, and the next thing he knows, Milla's kneeling in front of him, touching his face. "Sasha?"

"Hm?" He blinks slowly. She breaks into a smile when he pushes his glasses up to rub at his eyes.

"You're too cute right now, you know that?" Milla asks. She climbs her way onto the bed and up to sit among her pillows. "Take the suit off and come to bed."

He complies willingly, stripping down to his shorts and undershirt. Each piece of clothing he removes is carefully folded and set on the dresser, right beside the bowl of pins. It's not the first time he's undressed in front of her, nor is it the first time he's shared a bed with her. HQ has been known to be stingy with accommodations in the past. So when he lies down next to her and he pulls up the covers, nothing feels untoward.

"You're thinking too loud," Milla mutters, her face only inches away from his own. She nestles down, turning her face into the pillow. "Go to sleep."

And he does.


	3. Chapter 3

Sasha wakes in his childhood bed, his eyes crusted over, the air heavy with smoke. He reaches up and palms his eyes with pudgy hands. His sleeves are singed. He rises, pads barefoot across the barn board floors, tries the door.

It's jammed.

He presses through it, his hands sinking into the wood and then his arms and his head. A pile of shoes block the way, knee high, leather rotting. He kicks them and they scatter to the far corners of the room. He opens the door. It gives way to a corridor, a hospital wing, stretching far to the left and right and curling upwards, walls speckled with doorways and soot and dark mold that drips and bubbles like a waterlogged breath. It's snowing. A low whistle fills the air as he rattles knobs to no avail. Every door is jammed except the one he should not open, the one he never opens because the lamp is always red, always pulsing, always sitting on the nightstand with the crooked glass shade that he wants to smash, always next to the figure prone under the bloodstained sheet, the figure that doesn't breathe except it does breathe this time but Sasha is rooted to the spot in the doorway, hand hovering over the knob he never touched but the sheet is falling away and the door is gone and a scream wells up in his throat

Sasha shuts his eyes. Takes a breath. Steady.

Swallow the scream and pinch your skin.

There is no pain because this is a dream. A figment of an overactive imagination and childish exaggeration. His fingers dig into the soft skin of his cheek, just to be sure, just to make sure the fear isn't masking it or the snow numbing it. A product of his own mind can do nothing more than frighten him. Breathe.

Sasha opens his eyes. Takes a breath. The bed is empty. A sickly red pools from under the door, seeping towards his toes.

Nope.

He slams the door and books it down the hall as the walls curl in around him, threatening to swallow him whole. The doors are flung outward, the hinges screaming, children screaming, metal on metal, the knobs crashing into the walls, denting them, shattering them like glass and as the walls fall around him he has to round corner after corner never knowing what is lurking around the bend until his feet lose purchase with the ground and he finds himself skidding on his knees towards a black abyss.

He can hear it behind him, breathing, dark blood pumping through its veins, but the floor is sloping into the hole, the hole with smoke rising from it in heavy plumes, curling around him, flames licking up the sides without light without warmth without any indication of being flames and Sasha is left with two options: face whatever the hell is behind him or jump into the fire.

He chooses fire.

He chooses to fall, to fall forever and hit the ground too soon, spiraling into unknown depths as the screams carry upward, filling his ears, filling his mind with the sound of children crying children begging children screaming children burning and when he finally hits the ground the impact is nothing but powder soft snow.

It swirls around him, enveloping him, protecting him from the flames above, lulling him as he sinks further into the drift, deeper and deeper until something snakes itself around his waist and pulls him up towards the surface. He struggles against it, kicking, thrashing, screaming, but the snow hits his tongue and he realizes it's ash and suddenly his lungs burn , only they shouldn't burn because this is only a dream, only a nightmare and the thought gives him just enough strength to break free and hurl himself across the room. He tumbles and turns, expecting to see the beast from above descending upon him, and he freezes.

"M...Milla?"

She's crawling towards him, dragging herself through the ash, looking older and younger than he's ever seen her before. She pushes herself to her feet and stumbles. Her hair is plastered against her damp face, her skirt covered in dark, trailing handprints. The fire that surrounds her is filled with terrified, melting faces, all calling her name at once. Sasha hears his heart pounding over the screams.

"Please…" she whispers, towering over him. "Don't cry, my darling…"

He stays deathly still as her hands go to his face, gripping him tightly as she leans in. Her complexion is blotchy, her eyes swollen nearly shut. The children are screaming but she softens, smoothing her thumbs over his cheeks. "Sasha? Sasha… I don't understand."

"Milla-" He reaches up, grabs hold of her wrists. Cracks splinter up her arms and she tries to pull away, but he cannot let go. She begins to crumble in his hands, but his fingers melt into what's left of her skin and he's burning and screaming and the flames intensify, the children growing louder and louder until they drown out all else and -

Sasha and Milla are jolted awake. They're tangled together, skin fevered, the blankets lumped on the floor. In half a second they spring apart. Milla's up and in the bathroom, running the tap, the water muffling the sound of her sobs. Sasha finds himself standing at the dresser on rubber legs, rummaging through the pockets of his coat for cigarettes. He finds a pack and opens it with trembling fingers. It's empty. Figures.

* * *

The world is quiet.

Sasha and Milla are sat at opposite ends of her sofa. While she finished up in the bathroom, he turned her stereo on low, managing to find a classical record among her rows and rows of pop. He found a kettle in her cupboard and made tea. Now he's got his fingers wrapped around a steaming cup, a blanket draped across his lap, and a massive hangover threatening to turn his brain into mush. Prior to wrapping herself in a blanket cocoon, Milla switched on the fairy lights and lava lamps and threw open the windows. She wouldn't accept any tea.

They sit in silence for a long while, Milla staring at the lights, Sasha staring at her.

"I could help," he finally says. She glances over at him with tired, red-rimmed eyes. "With the nightmares. I could teach you how to contain the demons. To control the negative thoughts and emotions, to concentrate them into raw psychic energy and-"

"Okay."

He pauses. "Okay?"

"Sasha, I'm just so tired ," she says. "The dreams… they come and go. I want them to stay gone."

"I cannot guarantee-"

"We can try."

* * *

She points out where she keeps her agency-issued Psycho-Portal, and he carefully applies it to her forehead.

He's been to her parties before. They are garish and loud, filled with obnoxious dancers with no actual skill. Everything floats and spins and he is forced to wobble about on a thought bubble like a trained circus bear. The party that Sasha is sucked into, however, is dead. The TVs are smashed, the cushions are torn, the music is skipping. A heavy layer of smoke mutes the neons and clogs his lungs. As he mounts his thought bubble and rolls through the rubble, the dancers cast him wary looks.

He finds Milla not too far in, watching a pair of bouncers attempt to hold a bulging door shut by pressing their full weight against it. She glances back at him just as his thought bubble pops. "Temporary fix."

Sasha nods and steps toward the door.

"Ah, careful darling," Milla warns, resting a hand on his arm. "It can get hot."

He nods again and takes a breath. "Right. It seems that the best course of action would be to create a distant room with a vault specifically for nightmares. We'll build up the fortifications, create a manageable barrier to filter the memories from the figments."

He touches the door. Or tries to, as his hand phases directly through the material. He gives his arm an experimental tug, only to find that he's stuck fast. Curious. He can hear Milla's cautious voice saying his name, but he advances further. Soon his arm is through, then his shoulder, his head, and finally his whole body.

Milla takes a step forward. "Sasha?"

There is no reply and the door goes still. The bouncers look at one another before stepping away from the door. This is a mistake. The door bursts open as a torrent of shadows and fire floods the room. The bouncers are bowled over and Milla braces herself, taking slow, measured breaths. She trudges forward, but the heat and the dark and the memories overwhelm her, short-circuiting her senses and slamming her out of her own mind.

She wakes on the couch, her vision blurred, the sound of her heart hammering in her ears. She reaches up with a floaty hand and touches her chilled forehead. The Psycho-Portal is gone. Her hand comes back damp after she swipes it down her face. She takes a moment to let her eyes adjust, to focus in on her bloodstained palm, and she realizes her nose is bleeding. She pinches it shut and pushes herself into a sitting position.

The room is rumbling as if a train is passing no more than fifty feet away. Sasha is sitting bolt-upright, eyes rolled back, still in his hypnotic trance. Milla's heart skips a beat and a burning rises in her throat as she casts off her blankets and grabs his shoulders. "Sasha!"

Something pops behind her as his head lolls forward. There's a sickening moment where he's completely limp, but then he sucks in a whistling breath and begins to cough. She should give him a moment to regroup, but she surges forward, crushing him in a hug. He pats her arm weakly.

"Milla, I can't breathe..."

"Sorry, sorry!" She pulls back immediately and retreats to her side of the sofa. "Are you alright? What happened? Where did you go?"

"I… I don't know," he says, reaching for his cup. His hands tremble as he chugs down the last dregs of his tepid tea. He pauses and looks over his arms. "Am I bleeding?"

Milla groans, covers her nose and rises on jelly legs. "Sorry."

* * *

Sasha removes his glasses and sets them by his teacup. He rubs the dents that are set into the bridge of his nose. His head is pounding; his eyes burn. Milla's blood is drying on his arm but his mind is too fuzzy for even a passing worry about germs.

Milla makes a valiant attempt to head to the bathroom, managing to get about halfway there before her knees give in. She catches herself on a side table, keeping one hand clasped over her still-dripping nose as she uses the other to prop herself up. Sasha jumps to his feet and hurries to her despite the stars invading the periphery of his vision.

"Milla?" He slides an arm around her, bracing her up.

"I'm fine, darling," she says with a breathy laugh. Leaning her weight against him, she pats his arm. "Right as the rain. Now, help me to the sink before I drip on the carpet."

They make the trek to the bathroom at a snail's pace. Sasha slumps down onto the closed toilet as soon as Milla has a firm grip on the edge sink. She sounds off a quick warning before hitting the lightswitch and flooding the room with fluorescent light.

"Give me one moment and I'll get your glasses," she says. He nods and presses the heels of his hands against his eyes in an attempt to ward off the growing pressure in his head.

Milla takes a breath and surveys her reflection. She's looking… well, not so fabulous. Her complexion is waxy and pale, her bangs hang limp against her face. The front of her pajamas are caked in drying blood, and she's a bit too nervous to check out the damage hiding beneath her hand. Instead, she leans over the basin and uncovers her nose.

No blood!

She lets out a happy little gasp and turns the taps on full blast, intent on scrubbing her skin clean. She's halfway through washing her hands when Sasha clears his throat.

"I would greatly appreciate being able to see."

"Oh!" She rinses her hands and shakes them dry as she rushes off to the living room. Sasha flinches as the cold water spatters against his face. Milla grabs his glasses off the table and returns to hand them off with a smile. "Sasha, I completely forgot about you, poor baby!"

He lets out a flat hum and slides them on. She goes back to the sink and he follows suit, squinting despite his dark lenses. "Washcloth?"

She motions vaguely to the shelves by the tub before splashing her face with water. Each one is covered in bottles and jars and bars and bombs. He lifts up what appears to be a block of pure glitter which begins to crumble in his hands. It is quickly pushed behind a large tub of some kind of cream. He pushes a bottle of shampoo in front of it too, just for good measure. He tries to brush the evidence off of his hands, but the sparkles seem to multiply. Eventually, he gives up with a sigh. "Milla, help."

She looks over and stifles a laugh.

"This is not amusing."

"Of course not," she replies, coming over and pulling open a drawer Sasha was unaware of. Washcloths abound. He grabs one and returns to the sink, scrubbing away at his arms. Milla pats his back as she leaves the room to fetch a clean pair of pajamas.

After his skin is satisfactorily clean and he downs some painkillers for his headache, Sasha makes his way back into the living room. The windows reveal the first hints of morning light, though it is just bright enough to see that her lava lamps are shattered and a thin, spidery crack runs up her wall towards the ceiling.

Oh.

He lets out a sigh and ducks down to pick up the broken glass, gathering the largest shards with his hands and the smallest with telekinesis. The various blobs of multicolored wax have sunk into her carpet like deflated jellyfish, and he can't help but stare at them as his mind wanders to all of the worst possible outcomes of losing control of psychic abilities. Control is the most vital skill any Psychonaut could possess. He could have melted her brain, both figuratively and literally. He could have brought her apartment building to the ground. He could have -

"Don't worry about the lamps," she says, startling him back into reality. She's leaning in her bedroom doorway, offering him a small smile. "It happens to the best of us."

"How are you feeling?" he asks, climbing to his feet. He discards the glass in the kitchen trash. "You ought to get some rest."

"I'm a little stuffy," she says, watching him as he plops down onto the sofa and rolls to face the cushions. "Not coming to bed?"

He shakes his head, stretching his legs out and over the arm of the couch.

"That can't be comfortable," she says, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Goodnight, Milla."

"Goodnight, Sasha."


	4. Chapter 4

When Sasha walks into his office the following Monday morning, he expects to see a pile of petty case reports on his desk. He does not expect to see one of his superiors sitting beside the typical pile, staring him down like a bull about to charge.

"Where have you been?"

"Agent Mux," Sasha replies, shrugging off his coat and tossing it onto the sofa. "If this is about the incident with the confusion grenades-"

"It's not," she says, climbing to her feet. "The whole point of issuing you a phone was so that you would answer it when we need you."

"Ah…" Sasha pats his pockets. Cigarettes, wallet, keys… No phone. Curious. "I must have left it at home."

"Load of good it does you there," she says, rolling her eyes. "You're not some baby-faced cadet, Nein. Zanotto wanted you in his office an hour ago. You have to be on top of these things."

"I am aware," he says. "Are you here just to relay that message?"

"That and to hand off the file." She snaps her fingers and the folder floats toward him. He takes it, thumbs through the contents, and lands on identification photos of two Psychonauts - one male, one female, only vaguely familiar at best. "Two agents have gone missing, Kirscht and Taborsky. We haven't heard from them in three days and we're beginning to get concerned."

"Were they on a case?"

"A series of dock fires about twenty miles south of Seattle, Washington. Suspected to be your average pyrokinetic punk, pretty routine. They were last seen leaving the hotel to investigate the scene, but they never made it to their destination."

"Should Agent Vodello be involved in this investigation?"

"That's up to you, Nein," Mux says. "You know our policy on backup. I suggest you use any resources you have at your disposal."

"What should I do with my current cases?" he asks, closing the folder and tucking it beneath his arm.

"Any cases you are currently on will be reassigned," she says. "Drop them off on my desk before you leave. Your flight leaves at noon."

Sasha manages to track down Milla in the herbaphony hall, sat in one of the few sunny spots not occupied by a fern or flower. She has an obscenely large beverage perched on the edge of the table. It's something blended, cold, smothered in whipped cream and syrup. She's reading over a report, lightly drumming a pen against the table, looking like she belongs in a shopping mall rather than government agency.

She looks up as he approaches and flashes him a smile. Her eyes have a glassy quality to them, though her makeup is too precise for her to have been crying. "Ah, sweetheart! I was just thinking of seeing you."

"Did something happen?" he asks. "You look… off."

"Hm? No, no, I'm fine," she says, waving her hand. "I had some funky dreams last night, but not my kind of funky, you know? But let's not talk about that, darling. I have a present for you!"

"A present?"

"Close your eyes," she says. She leans over to rummage through her bag, and he obliges, shielding his eyes with the case folder. "Ready!"

He drops the folder to the table and finds his phone floating a few inches away from his face.

"I found it under my sofa," Milla says, grinning as he plucks it from the air. "That and one of your socks. How did you leave with only one sock?"

"I left with no socks." He flips the phone open and clears out the missed calls. "We have a case. Missing agents in Seattle. Take your current cases over to Mux. I'll brief you on the flight over."

Approximately six miles above Lake Oblongata, Milla runs a finger down the edge of Agent Taborsky's photo. "There's something not right about this, Sasha."

The commercial flight booked by HQ is cramped and stuffy, but the buzz of a few hundred people packed like sardines affords the pair a sense of privacy. Milla has the window seat, the case report spread out upon her tray table, while Sasha has the aisle. His knees dig into the seat in front of him.

"We have nothing to go on," he says, tearing into a packet of complementary pretzels. "They were both model agents. No histories of violent or erratic behavior. No overt signs of dissatisfaction with their lives. They either staged the disappearance or ran into something sinister."

"I doubt they staged it." Milla sighs and props her head up on her hand. "They didn't get on well."

"You know them?"

"We worked with Agent Kirscht on that mission in Argentina," she says. "And Alena's office is literally two doors down from yours."

"Proximity means nothing to me, Milla."

"Darling, you know that's not the point," she says, rolling her eyes. "You've _met_ them before. It couldn't hurt to socialize a bit, file away a few extra notes in those shoe boxes of your mind."

"I don't have space in my shoe boxes for a few extra notes," he says. "They are already filled. With shoes. And this tangent brings nothing to the case."

"You're a psychoanalyst, Sasha. Knowing people is your job."

"My job - _our_ job is to find the agents," he says. "And if something did happen to them, we might still be able to pick up some lingering trace of their distress."

"Hopefully" Milla says, tucking the reports into the folder. She leans back in her seat and glances out at the minuscule buildings passing below them. "We need something to go on."

Sasha and Milla arrive at the docks at half past five in a rented beige sedan that reeks of crayons and sour milk. It was the only inconspicuous vehicle in the lot. The man behind the rental counter had argued the the smell would work as a surprisingly effective theft deterrent, but Sasha still made him take twenty percent off of the initial cost.

They split up to scan the area. Milla takes to the skies, cloaked in invisibility, while Sasha walks out to the docks. It affords him the opportunity to light up a cigarette and stretch his legs. The place is all but abandoned, save for the screeching gulls overhead and a few vessels lazily bobbing out on the water. It's a soothing scene, and whether it's the jet lag or a lack of caffeine, Sasha feels about ready to drop.

A slight tug at the edges of his thoughts makes him turn. The air above a nearby warehouse shimmers, like the haze on a long stretch of desert road. " _Milla_?"

" _Someone has followed us,_ " she sends back. His gaze falls on a black car parked about a hundred feet behind theirs. "I _t could be a coincidence, but stay on alert._ "

He nods and drops his cigarette, crushing it underfoot as he makes his way back inland. The mystery car reverses and speeds out of the lot, leaving nothing but a spray of gravel in its wake. "Completely not suspicious."

Milla drops down beside him, casting off her invisibility and crossing her arms. "I don't like this, Sasha. Whoever that was, their mind is an absolute fortress."

"Hm." He files the thought away for later use. "Did you spot anything else?"

"It's vague, but Alena was definitely in there," she says, motioning to the warehouse. "No sign of Kirscht."

"It's something," he says. "We ought to get in there before our friends return."

Milla nods, taking off to the main door. A well-aimed blast knocks the padlock off, and the pair enter cautiously. It's dark. Heavy dust swirls through slanted shafts of light from windows high above. Milla draws energy toward her hands, bathing them in a pink-hued glow. She splits from Sasha, heading toward the middle of the floor. Picking up on psychic distress is like tuning a radio. Once a melody is heard in a sea of static, it's only a matter of time and position to get proper reception. Each step brings her closer to the source, to where Alena's signals are the strongest, until her foot lands in something decidedly slick.

"Sasha!" Milla calls, ducking down to inspect the pool. "We've got blood!"

There's maybe half a liter in total. It's a muddy color, thickened with a dark grey powder that is scattered along the floor like sawdust. She follows the spatters forward to a support column a few feet away. A bullet is embedded in the wood at shoulder height.

Sasha arrives with a stack of papers tucked under his arm. "Alena's injury, I presume."

"It seems like it," she says, sighing. "There's a good chance it wasn't fatal, but…"

"If it was, where's the body?" Sasha asks. "And where was Agent Kirscht during all of this?"

"Maybe he was involved, god forbid," Milla says. "Or maybe he was able to keep his composure during the confrontation. Maybe she came out here alone." She pauses, collecting her thoughts. "What did you find?"

"They're storing lead in here."

"Lead?"

"Industrial grade powdered lead. It's commonly used in some corrosion resistant paints, for lining x-ray vests, weighing down scuba divers, weapons manufacturing. Relatively common stuff."

"And those files?"

"These?" He shifts through the pile. "Ledgers. Some kind of inventory management system, but it's all in Russian. I'll send a copy over to HQ tonight, see if someone can translate."

"We should go get a room somewhere," Milla says. "We can get HQ to pull some strings, get the translations and the blood analyzed overnight. If we delay any longer, we'll be lucky to find anything else."


End file.
